Weber: Jubilee Overture | Giuseppe Sinopoli and the Staatskapelle Dresden

The Staatskapelle Dresden orchestra celebrated on September 22nd 1998 its 450th anniversary with a concert in the Semperoper opera house in Dresden. Guiseppe Sinopoli (1946 – 2001) conducted Carl Maria von Weber’s Jubilee Overture – a piece which could not have fitted better to the occasion. This is because the Jubilee Overture had already been played in Dresden in 1818, on the occasion of another special anniversary… The creation of the Jubilee Overture was initially accompanied with disappointment for its composer Carl Maria von Weber (1786-1826). Having been the royal kapellmeister at the Dresden court since 1817, Weber was meant to compose a ‘celebratory cantata’ to mark the 50th anniversary of Frederick August III becoming Elector of Saxony. On his return from his summer vacation with the finished cantata, Weber found that the music program for the anniversary celebration had already been completed without his composition. Feeling disappointed, he was minded to withdraw himself from the festivitie